BOXING BARNUM

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 239, 30 May 1932, Page 2

BOXING BARNUM

PRIMO CARNERA APPEARS IN EXHIBITION NIGHT BEFORE CONTEST. GREAT FISTIC SHOWMAN. There 'may be doubts about the ranking of Primo Carnera as a heavy- ; weight fighter, but there ought to be general agreement that he is the pugi ilistic inventor par excellence, that he ! is the champion breaker of traditions, ; that he is one of the greatest fistic showmen the world has known, and 1 that he has no present rival as a i moiiey-maker, writes Trevor . Wignall in a London paper of March 23. Carnera is unorthodox in the ring, but he is much more so away from it. The average boxer, in training, does a little road work in the morning, and ' engages in sparring and loosening or fat-reducing exercises in the afternoon. Between the -hours of his activity Ke leads a most restful life, and is tueked into bed by nine o'clock. That is about the hour when the mammoth Italian is beginning to feel properly awake. When he is not sitting with friends in an Italian restaurant he may be found in the lounge of a de luxe hotel, or in an outsize seat in a cabaret Another point is that two or three days before a fight the normal champion goes into a sort of retirement. He scorns road work, and any talk of 1 sparring is liable to throw him into a tantrum. Boxers are kittle cattle — especially in the 48 hours or so that precedes a contest. But regard the habits of Carnera, as practised this very week. Instead of swathing himself in cotton wool on Monday, he journey -to Leicester, wliere, in the evening, he boxed a number of hard rounds with Jack Stanley, Eddie Steele and Guardsman" Gater. The bout with Stanley was the more interesting beeause it was the f ormer London policeman who • lent himself as the first stepping stone to Carnera's remarkable rise to fame. Followed H.im. It will he remembered that when the Italian orginally came to London he had a second-hand overcoat, odd boots and about five francs in his poclcet. He was hired for a praliminary contest with Stanley, hut as that only lasted about a minute, little was seen of the human mountain. Next morning, however, all London was following "him as he walked about the streets. Two nights ago at Leicester, Stanley was again Carnera's opponent in an exhibition, and, to the delight of the crowd, boxing's Barnum suddenly stuck out his solar-plexus, and invited Stanley to hit it with all his power. Stanley obliged. An instant later he was down in the dust on his back. The former policeman had to he helped to his dressing-room. On Friday night, three days before he was booked to meet George Cook in London, Carnera was at Stoke-on-Trent, where he toyed with four opponents, all of whom were in the neighbourhood of 6ft 6in. Even John L. Sullivan never thought of the barnstorming thft comes so easiljy to Carnera, and certainly Dempsey and Tunney never made railway journeys to take part in exhibitions the night before their contests. Carnera is already the richest man that ever walked put of the village near Venice, where he was borne, but if he continues to give exhibitions in all the odds hours when he is not battling — for there is much money in these provincial appearances — he will presently be the wealthiest person in Italy and all the countries adjacent to it.